Google choice of Oeiras for new operations hub ‘no surprise’ for mayor

The recently announced decision by Silicon Valley-based multinational Google to open an innovation centre in Oeiras, near Lisbon, was no surprise to the local council, which says that ‘Oeiras Valley’ has attracted technology companies for decades.

After an announcement by the government at the end of January, Google explained in a written reply to Lusa News Agency that the unit planned for Lagoas Park business park in Oeiras would be “a new centre of operations for suppliers […] totally dedicated to third-party suppliers”. This new tech hub for operations in Europe, the Middle East and Africa is to start with around 535 jobs for highly-qualified personnel, Google said.According to the Ministry of Economy, no state subsidy is involved in the project.Google’s choice of location made was “no surprise”, according to the mayor of Oeiras, Isaltino Morais, who stressed that high-tech have made investments in the area in the past.“This is now being talked about because of the media coverage of Google’s coming here to our area [but] Oeiras is already today the municipality [in Portugal] with most companies of this kind,” Morais told Lusa.According to the Oeiras mayor, around 30 percent of Portugal’s tech industry is based in the area.Given that Oeiras is also the fourth biggest exporter among the country’s municipalities, he said, it is “natural that a company with certain characteristics like Google” should choose to come.He listed other business parks, such as Taguspark, Quinta da Fonte, Arquiparque and Parque Holanda, as examples of the kind of spaces available for companies that are not so common in Portugal, “with little noise” and good quality of life.Companies in the area include HP, Cisco and Colt, making it a veritable ‘Oeiras Valley’, Morais said.Still, he stressed the need to continue to improve the municipality’s offer, above all in terms of the road infrastructure, and facilities for electric cars and bicycles.

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